Stacks of Metro 2033 news has arrived in the last few days, so I thought I’d do a quick rundown. First up was the news that the game will be supporting DirectX 11, for which THQ released a bunch of new screenshots, one of which is above. That’s some eleven, right there. Great news for that bloke I saw buying a DX11 capable card in PC World the other day… Then, perhaps more interestingly, there’s the news that the game will be shipping with Steamworks. What does that mean? Well, Steam Achievements, Steam support for in-game DLC, and a bunch of other Steam stuff including the cloud savegame thing, so you can keep your saves online. Finally Eurogamer have some footage of the game being played. Doesn’t look terrible, anyway.

Theres nothing wrong with linear shooters and quicktime events.
Not everything has to be an open world sandbox you know. That kind of thinking is why we have games like Wolfenstein (the new one), a linear shooting with a shitty useless open world component shoe-horned in because apparently thats what everyone wants. Well not me :p

That it’s possible to do an open world so badly it’s worse than the best of the linear games doesn’t change the fundamental gaming equation: all things equal, choice and emergent gameplay always beats linearity and “interactive movies.”

Hey, I’m not too bothered either way. I like the setting and a good game’s a good game, so I’ll wait and see. Something with a bit more in the way of exploration and emergent play will always tantalise my personal gaming taste buds so I hope Metro is a bit more enigmatic than your CODs.

Frankly both styles have their pros and cons. A world where all games are the same would be shite. An open world game will never be a more immersive narrative than a linear. Thats just not possible. This kind of narrowmindedness will truly be the bane of videogames

Are you trying to be funny based on a nonsensical joke, are you trying to goad people by being purposefully misinformed, are you using the Ubisoft situation to spread FUD about Steam, or is there another reason for it?

Anyway, in my role of FUDbuster (I despise FUD as a Linux user, but I won’t tolerate it anywhere) I reveal the following:

1.) Cloud saving is optional.
2.) Getting disconnected from the Internet for any amount of time does not cause Steam (or the cloud saving feature) to freak out and you will be able to continue to play the game uninterrupted.
3.) After an initial handshake you can play the game in Steam’s offline mode which I’ve used to play Mass Effect 2 for the last three times, now. Offline mode does not require one to be connected to the Internet.

So in conclusion: You only need to be online if you want to make use of a feature that uses the Internet.

Well, duh.

I’m pretty damn sure that people wouldn’t kick up a fuss if the only thing they lost considering Ubisoft’s DRM was cloud saving. I mean, if you could play a Ubisoft game in offline made, requiring no Internet connection, then no one would complain.

Except, unlike Steam:

1.) Ubisoft has no offline mode.
2.) If you try to play, Ubisoft locks you out of your saves.
3.) If your Internet drops, the DRM freaks out.

Past the initial handshake of Steam, you can disconnect your Internet connection with Steam in online mode anyway and play for the rest of the period. I know becuse I’ve done that in the past, before I knew about offline mode.

So comparing Steam with Ubisoft’s DRM because of cloud saving is insanity. I’d be happy to lose Ubisoft’s undoubtedly shitty (do you honestly think they’d be able to implement it properly?) cloud saving if I could play their games in some offline mode.

I’m sorry for this post, but you created FUD with your statement and I really do dislike FUD. And as far as Steam is concerned… well, credit where credit is due, damn it!

Or it was a joke, based on the (probably correct) assumption that everyone reading an RPS comments thread already knows everything you just took an age to write. I.e. not an attempt to worry people, not likely to have the effect.

I had to google the acronym FUD. I feel that this is at least mildly ironic.

it seems that I’ve not just got to wonder about Helio but also about whether Wulf is a misundersttod comic genius or just trying to befuddle me!

On an acronym related side note my old housemate and I got so attuned to acronyms while on work placement last year that when I uttered the horrendous words “I think it’s a 3PJ” whilst cooking he instantly knew that I meant “three pan job.” it was a simultaneously glorious and disturbing moment.

Err , , , yeah , , , Metro. Looks pretty decent, I did always like the On the Rails level of Half Life.

The fire effects in Metro 2033 aren’t that bad, I’ve seen much worse. Turok (the latest game, which was fun) had some damn awful fire effects for the flamethrower, in fact I think they were the same ones featured for the flamethrower in Legendary (yes, I know a bad example). Both games used UE3 – were they both also using the standard fire effects?

I’m not suggesting they are the same, just that there are certain similarities. However, people praise Steam and some are rabidly fanboyish about it, something which you don’t see about Ubi’s new DRM. My main grievance with Steam is that some games get locked into the whole store and other “features” of it. Stuff I don’t want, as well as a program in the background I don’t want, and a registration I don’t want.

The store thing is a particular annoyance, since I prefer to use Gamersgate or buy retail (retail usually being far cheaper for new games). I feel that the steam client/store thing is anti-competitive behaviour, and I won’t support that.

It’s just a personal preference, and again I must point out it’s not as bad as the Ubisoft thing, but it does still bug me, so I don’t buy Steam-linked games. Plenty of others to spend my money on.

Eh, I can forgive ‘em. I mean, would YOU sell a product that required your customers to download your biggest competitor’s advertisement-filled app to use? It’s doubly bad for Stardock, since they develop/publish games themselves: they’re supporting both Valve as a developer AND Steam as a platform if they sell the game. Screwed both ways.

Did you ask one of the perpetually stoned 16 year old sales assistants for help? Did they look really annoyed that you dared interrupt their daydreaming of their next spliff break? Or is that just the one near where I live?

The reason I mention this is because if we start vilifying developers for doing things the better way, then they’re going to stop caring. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Steam is nothing at all like the Ubisoft system, and anyone who thinks otherwise should learn how the software they use actually works.

I know it’s horrible to hear, but I hate steam, with passion. I want to buy retails, I want to play when I want, I want to sell my games, I want to be offline without going online first, I want my patches on time.

Wulf : the origional anti-internet man *ducks*
In all seriousness though, steams offline feature does actually work these days. Although for me, it was twitchy at best right up untill september last year. Deny away valve, Clearly my computer just inhabitsa twisted area of space time dimention that is unique to the 2×1 feet of my desk. yes. YES

The last time it crapped out on me was over the Thanksgiving holiday in late November. I haven’t had much cause to test it since then, though. I’d heard it had been improved, but was (I think understandably) skeptical. I’m sorry to hear about your experience, I’d love nothing more than to be able to trust Steam’s offline mode.

Quite fancy a standard corridor shooter atm; all this open world and wide corridor stuff is good but occasionally I fancy something linear with set objectives so I can just concentrate on shooting people and things really hard in the face.

Is this the X Ray engine though? Cos it looks like it, right down to the gun-stored-on-back-does-funny-clipping-thing-through-buttocks glitch that all the Stalker games suffer from.

I thought about that myself, perhaps it is the X-Ray engine, but I never thought somebody would be interested in picking it up – it has countless flaws I must say (even if the STALKER games are good)… And this looks slightly too good for it frankly, but that could be due to better environments and highly-detailed props/models ;)

check out the new necrovision game, l1ddl3monkey. released yesterday on gamersgate/impulse/steam. nice improvement on the first game, completely insane and over the top greatness. hopefully they’ll get a demo out soon, unlike the first game this one is awesome right off. chapter 1 playthrough; link to youtube.com

Some of the 4A people are old Stalker devs. The X-Ray engine dude is one of them, that would explain the similarities. I don’t think they’re allowed to use the same engine though, so I’d say they’re not the same.
Hopefully there won’t be as many bugs, since the guys are there from the start to the end, and didn’t leave midway like in Stalker.

I hate Steam. HATE it. Especially when a purely single player game utilizes it. It makes no sense. I don’t buy boxed games to have to ask Valve for permission, be online to install the product I paid for, wait for hours until Steam kindly updates my game and have that crap running in the background.
Impulse is vastly superior, less intrusive. Why aren’t you all using it? Oh, forgot – Stardock is not Valve and you’re all busy sucking Valve’s ****.

I hate Steam/Valve fanboys who are too dumb to realize some people would rather have a simple disc-check or unintrusive Stardock’s GOO. Or when buying digitally, some people would prefer to buy games from other dd services, without the necessity to run some useless third-party crap.

Steam used to be the most restrictive DRM out there which you blindly accepted and even praised (LOL!), Ubisoft saw that and took the next step – created a Steam-like service, only without an offline mode. Blame yourselves. Moan, bitch. You made Ubi’s new DRM possible.

If you all love Steam so much, buy your games there, but leave everyone else alone! You’re like commies – turning everyone’s lives into nightmare “for the better good”.

Just don’t buy it. Simple as. I buy games that are priced right for me for the Pro’s and cons they have. If this means buying Fuel from Steam for £2.99 or Mass Effect 2 from cool shop for £17.99 (thanks to Savygamer.co.uk for both of those heads up btw) then so be it.

However, Steam also provides me for a way to keep in touch with my friends, see what they’re playing and when I installed Windows 7 after christmas, single player games were installed and the saves were there, not to mention the controls and settings also being there without me doing a thing.

Steam is far more than the sum of it’s parts these days and while it isn’t perfect, it’s a shining beacon for PC gaming into the future.

So being a Stardock fanboy is better than being a Valve fanboy? Or are you just complaining for the sake of complaining?

I admit it, I’m a Valve fanboy. To me, there’s nothing wrong with that, because Steam works for me, and it works well. I’m generally always connected to the Internet, but when for whatever reason my connection goes down, I can keep playing. When I am connected, I have all my games in one place, they are updated regularly and automatically so I don’t have to trawl the net for the latest patch, and I can easily keep in contact with all my friends and join their games or my favourite server with absolute ease.

You have a different opinion, and that’s fine, but I for one don’t agree with it. I do try and understand where the Valve/Steam haters are coming from and think of ways it negatively affects my gaming experience, but to be honest I draw a blank every time.

Hmm does have a valid argument about Steam, but misses the point. Steam is better than Ubisoft because it offers something in return for requiring an online connection – primarily a community and access to games that otherwise might be impossible to play without a good knowledge of how to set up PC games.
Yes, despite this being a PC games blog, many people do play their games on the default settings because they do not know how to change the settings. No this is not a good thing about PC gaming, it makes it difficult and obscure to enter the scene compared to xbox put in and play.

Steam’s community is well put together, responsive and free – unlike some other online communities. A permanent connection is all steam really asks for now, previously their client was unstable but now it runs better than most other programs found under windows. The vast majority of gamers just do not have the patience to recognise this.

If your concerned about privacy, the solutions simple – never ever buy things online – simple stat recording is not really an invasion of privacy, holding your address and card details is. Steams client is a little restrictive but has offered something in return. Remember also that allowing two individuals to log onto the same account simultaneously would undermine the community.

Ubisoft’s service is not Steam and never will be. Arguing that single player games released on a platform that can support multiplayer games should not have online checks is nonsense. Fact is people that argue for not having these checks are little different than those who suggest that some computers should not be on the internet or that people should stop using cars because it was better when everyone traveled by foot. Perhaps Ubisoft did look at Steam and decide to copy it, they still took the least good part of it and forgot to add the best part. That is stupid, but preferring CD checks over net checks, that is stupid too. CD’s and DVD’s are dying – good riddance. You argue for stalling a developing industry, this is stepping backwards, not forwards.

Well said. I’ve recently bought a new computer, and having 3 years of gaming to catch up on the first place I went to was Steam. I’m actually in the interesting place where ALL of the games installed on my computer are installed on Steam, and I’m perfectly happy with them.

This is, of course, my opinion. And as we all know opinions are not to be respected but beaten with internet sticks.

But for those that don’t want to utilise any of the community aspects, the messaging, etc. It’s just a program that gets in the way. It’s not just a case of people not using steam because they don’t like it, but not liking it because they don’t use it.

Also, online and offline modes should only affect features of steam itself, auto-updates, or whatever. It shouldn’t affect whether or not I can just play my games. It’s unnecessary, I should always be allowed to play my games.

The difference between Ubisoft and Steam is that Steam only requires a handshake every now and then, not even every time you boot up the game (offline mode!). I’ve played games many times in offline mode where Steam can’t make a connection to the Internet and it’s continued on happily without a blip. This system is less offensive even than the one EA uses for Bioware’s games.

The interesting thing is that those arguing against Steam are rejecting facts and inserting ignorance to make Steam sound like Ubisoft’s DRM, the ignorance here is appalling, as can be seen in earlier posts. It’s left me aghast to be honest that some people know so little about how the software on their own damn computer works. They should be more educated as to what they use.

Steam Offline: Almost like a store bought game except for some handshakes, in fact you could only have it handshake when the game needs to be updated.

Steam Online: Offers the Steam community, and the overlay. For games that support Steamworks; online scoring, and cloud saves & settings. The requirement is only a simple handshake when the game is launched and it needs nothing after that.

This is versus Ubisoft’s DRM having no offline mode, and having only paltry extra features for forcing people to be online all the time (unlike Steam).

I can understand the “ALL DRM IS EBIL, RAWR!” stance but ignorance of/lying about less draconian DRM systems is only going to make matters worse. Everyone’s going to take the attitude of “If we can’t please them no matter what we do, we might as well screw ‘em all over anyway.”

Think of it like a theatre. One theatre might ask you to wipe your feet to enter, but another might ask you to go through a metal detector, have security pad you down, and then monitor you all the time whilst you watch your movie. The smart person is going to be irritated at the more draconian security measures and take their business to the theatre which is reasonable, the idiot is going to shout and yell about how every theatre is evil for expecting them to do something before they watch their movie, because all theatres are naturally evil. The idiot proposes that one incident of poor ethics shows poorly on all theatres, regardless of whether some are more reasonable than others.

For the less creative thinkers among us: Am I playing devil’s advocate here? Maybe. Maybe… But there’s truth in most stances, and the extremism regarding all DRM because of one really horrible form of DRM is going to screw us all over. Idiots aren’t just shooting their own feet, they’re shooting the feet of everyone, myself included as I don’t mind the Steam DRM too much. And as I said before, credit where credit is due, and as anonymous points out Ubisoft is nothing like Steam.

Look at Uhm there, just to wrap this up, he’s running off at the mouth without understanding how the software on his computer works, either. He clearly doesn’t understand that once a game has authenticated once, he can play that game in offline mode as much as he likes, but he clearly doesn’t understand how offline mode works, and believes that it would get in the way of how he plays his games. Here’s a hint: It wouldn’t.

Conclusion: People who have no idea of how the software on their computers work should not yell about DRM, because it makes those who’re actually clued in look bad too. We’re not all like that Valve, some of us appreicate that offline mode and put it to good use, don’t think that your efforts are unappreciated and forsake us, eh?

Important yes, indeed some of the tabs that appear in Steam are annoying. It is not that Steam cannot be improved for those that want less interference – the storefront should have an ‘off’ button for example. However for the advantages it brings and the fact that the majority do use those functions it is possible to accept.

Is it not that those calling for less interference want what cannot be given due to the state of the market. If no one wanted these features they would not be there. To ask Steam to provide for diametrically opposed views is unrealistic because it would dramatically affect their bottom line. If you really believe your right, become an entrepreneur, start a platform and sell games. You will quickly determine whether your beliefs are merited.

One might call this the ‘conundrum of capitalistic democracy’.

Nope you have no right to play your games, look at your license, you have the right to play the publisher’s game. This is dependent upon agreeing to the terms of the publisher. If the publisher wants to check that you are playing an official product, they have the right to check and you do not have the right to stop them. If you pirate a game, you have broken these terms and are a criminal.

Is it possible to perhaps not fault the gamers or the publishers for their (social) crimes? Of course not, to challenge the status quo surrounding these issues is a call for radical social and economic upheaval.

At least everyone can legitimacy blame everyone else for a situation that nobody caused.

I think you’re reading that wrong, I’m not even against steam at all. I just found the idea of an offline mode a strange one, it’s like telling my web browser to go into offline mode so I can look at a html file stored on my hard drive (except that’s not the best example). Seems like an unnecessary step to have to tell it to be in offline mode, why not just run it anyway, but add the extra bits if I’m online?

It’s kind of saddening that the majority of discussion in this topic is about bloody DRM and distribution rather than whether shooting monsters on underground trams is going to be decent fun or lip smackingly awesome.

According to the screen shots the graphics are just gorgeous. Fire work in dungeons and tunnels. However, would those game developers bother to show how their DX11 games look on DX10 systems? I mean, with so few DX11 games out there it’s a bit too early to invest in hardware update for DX11. Damn, why upgrade of DirectX would require such substantial upgrade in hardware in the first place?!

Besides, has 4A resolved the rumor of their game engine being actually a rework of X-ray? Technical things have nothing to do with me gamer. I am rather concerned, however, if realistic projectile is also applied in this game, how are we supposed to play that on Xbox? When I played STALKER, I find it painful (yet exciting) to aim when realistic projectile ticks in. Since I expect that distinction between PC and Xbox versions in gameplay, control and balance would not be allowed (if this is allowed there should be a huge debate on this), a gameplay demo should be there to clarify the above doubts for a purchasing decision

They have denied it, yes. ve3d posted that thing a couple of days ago, with the claim by some gsc guy that it was running xray, and a deny from a 4a guy or thq guy again on top of that. It blatantly was xray back in 2006 or whenever they first released screenshots of it, but by now they’ve probably updated and replaced all the xray parts to the point it’s completely unreasonable to call it the same engine. Too bad they can’t share engine tech with gsc or whatever, at least on the rendering end it would be nice to have this metro stuff in call of pripyat. Or, this is probably what stalker would look like by now if the main engine programmer guy hadn’t left, maybe. :)

Possibly a bit too linear judging by the trailers, it’s literally on the rails. I’m hoping there’s a bit of exploration mixed in there. Some nice open chambers occasionally, and not just for a boss fight.

I find myself not as excited about the game as I was initially. But still looking good.

I’m interested in this but worried about the checkpoint system. How punitive is that checkpoint system in play? What I mean is how often will it have the player replaying large sections of the game if they happen to be blindsided with an unlucky death or somesuch?

You might be forgetting that in movies and games you can’t smell what the protagonist smells. It’s all well and good escaping, but you’re going to be vomiting your way to freedom.
Also, I’m more then 9 inches across, so vents may be out of the question.

Why, after all these years, are counter strike’s guns still so much more fun to fire than all this fallout-y floating guns weirdness. I’m not saying counter strike is more fun to play, but they definitely got the gun mechanics right.

While I’m complaining, someone needs to bring back the over the top soldier of fortune 2 gore effects.

Looks like someone finally decided to bring STALKER to consoles. Except it looks like they fudged it by missing a large part of the STALKER games.

Just yesterday I was exploring Jupiter when I stumbled across a bloodsucker literally 5 feet away from me. My heart literally jumped as it roared and disappeared. Was it a scripted event? No, it was just a bloodsucker roaming around that scared the bejesus outta me.

This game does look decently pretty (except those god awful explosions towards the end of the video) but it looks awfully dull in terms of game mechanics. I’m probably gonna get flamed for saying that I think STALKER still has better lighting effects.